Putin Apologizes To Israel For Lavrov’s Hitler Claims

Haaretz reports:

In a call with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized for Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s assertion that Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins. Bennett accepted Putin’s apology for Lavrov’s remarks and thanked him for clarifying the Russian president’s attitude toward the Jewish people and the memory of the Holocaust, Bennett’s office said in a statement.

The Jerusalem Post reports:



Lavrov also stated that “the biggest antisemites are the Jews themselves” while attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, in an interview with Italian television.

Earlier this week, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called Lavrov’s statements “unforgivable” and Bennett stated that “lies like these are meant to blame the Jews themselves for the most terrible crimes in history, which were committed against them, and thus free the oppressors of the Jews from their responsibility.”

A readout by the Kremlin did not mention the apology. On Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry claimed that Lapid’s comments were “anti-historical” and “explain to a large extent why the current Israeli government supports the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv.”